I would like to call to order the city council study session of July 30th, 2024.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Bushnell.

Present.

Councilmember Daniels.

Councilmember Diaz.

Deputy Mayor Hines.

Here.

Council Member Rumba.

Here.

Councilmember Stalgay.

Here.

Councilmember Scott.

Here.

Councilmember Walker.

Mayor Woodards.

Here.

Mayor and Council members, the study session material sent to you at 11.02.

All right, moving on to our first agenda item, which is our Good Jobs Great Cities program update.

I'm going to be calling on City Manager's Office Senior Policy Analyst Bakota Warren.

And then we also have with us today Katie Condit, the chief executive officer for Workforce Central.

And I just want to start off with a couple of comments for those of you who are not familiar with this initiative.

Last year, when I became president of the National League of Cities, I had an opportunity to decide what my focus would be as president.

And one of the things I was really interested in focusing on was workforce and affordable housing.

And so today we're going to talk about the workforce piece of it.

But we were able to enter into a partnership with the Department of Labor.

And 16 cities were chosen to be a part of this cohort with 15 learning communities on top of that.

And Tacoma was chosen as one of the cities.

And so I'm really excited today for you all to hear about the work that we've been doing as it relates to workforce through our Greens Job Green Jobs Initiative.

This was a partnership, and I I won't tell say too much because Bacoda and Katie are going to get into it.

And then yeah, Bakota's checking off.

I don't need to say this anymore.

I don't need to say this anymore.

So I'll stop giving out all of Bakota's talking points and turn it over to them.

But this is something that I'm incredibly proud of.

Um and glad that Tacoma was chosen, not because I was chair and it was my idea, but because we submitted a very um a very uh good application and so competitive application.

And so with that, I will turn it over.

I think this is the first time I've ever turned anything right over to Bakoda, so I'll turn it over to Bacona.

Uh thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and members of the council.

Happy to be here with you today again, uh, Bakota Warren, Chief Policy Analyst with the Mayor's Office.

Uh, just giving you a quick opening a little bit about the Good Jobs Great Cities Initiative and some of the work over the year.

As Mayor had already mentioned, we've been doing this as a one-year cohort model since May of last year when we were formally selected through our competitive application.

Uh and since then, this partnership has been further developed.

Uh initially it was under Secretary Marty Walsh at the time in Mayor Woodard's presidency with the National League of Cities.

And since then, Acting Secretary Julie Su has continued those efforts and really helped to elevate and expand the program over the course of the year for the cohort and the other cities that have been a part of this conversation.

Um this work really has been a significant win for our region, not only for Tacoma and being able to engage these other cities around workforce issues and really learn from other communities on the forefront of workforce development issues, but really uh has helped position the city as being more competitive for other federal grant opportunities for a lot of the historic federal investments into the infrastructure space here as well.

Uh the initiative itself, Good Jobs Great Cities, really was developed to spur innovative and scalable city supported solutions that upskill and reskill workers, particularly into quality high demand jobs in the infrastructure, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing job spaces.

So a lot for Tacoma, this was really uh fortuitous for us.

It was on the heels of the city's green economic development strategy and had a lot of alignment to the same goals that that plan set out for the city.

And so this work really became a piece of the Green Economy hub work that the city's economic development team has been running and became kind of the lead team for the subcommittee on workforce for the green economy hub over the last year.

The core team that has been working with uh us here in the mayor's office on this initiative, of course, has been Workforce Central, with Katie here to present on more of the details shortly.

Uh we've also had the city's economic development team, the Pierce County Central Labor Council, Absur Construction is one of our private entities that have been with us to advise and support as well, as well as uh Bates and Clover Park Technical Colleges that provided the academic and technical college uh viewpoint for us as we continue this work over the last year.

Uh this presentation really is to just share what we have done over the last year as we get ready to close the cohort model.

Next year, the team will be traveling to Washington, DC to meet with the other cities, the Department of Labor, and the National League of Cities to conclude the formal cohort education of this work.

And so as we're getting closer to that meeting and learning and some of the final closeout of that piece of it, we wanted to just be able to share with the council and get any last questions or comments or feedback that you might have that could help shape how we go into that meeting and other questions and other things that we could prepare for so that we can then look at what next steps look like as this work continues here locally, which uh Katie will go more into.

Uh but with that, I'll pass it over to Katie Condit with Workforce Central CEO to take the presentation.

Thanks, Fakota, and thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and and Council.

It's wonderful to be here.

Um I have lost my voice a bit, so I will do my best.

Um, you have two documents in front of you.